Questions from the Road

If you were to get out on the road and ask people what their biggest
questions about the Bible are, what would they say? Well, Dr. Tommy
Mitchell does just that. A veteran Answers in Genesis speaker, he welcomes
questions and enjoys pointing people to God’s Word for the answers.

I travel all over the country—and the world—speaking about creation/ evolution
and the authority of the Bible, and I get asked a lot of questions. Of course
some people just refuse to believe the Bible no matter what and are unhappy
with the message. Other people ask me about arguments creationists shouldn’t
use. They ask questions about Noah’s Ark, distant starlight, and cavemen.

I love answering these questions and encourage people to ask about things they
don’t understand. I tell folks there isn’t a question they could ask that I
have not asked myself. After all, for many years I was a theistic evolutionist.
As I came to understand God’s Word was true and completely inconsistent with
that position, I needed answers to many questions.

I still remember my excitement at discovering that God’s Word provided what
I needed to know. And I want others to feel this excitement also.

What About the Millions of Years?

I’ve noticed a pattern. Deep down, many people are afraid to trust the Bible’s
history because it contradicts the prevailing evolutionary view. I suppose the
most common question I get is “Dr. Tommy, why do you say Christians can’t believe
the earth is millions of years old?”

I explain that I never say Christians can’t believe in millions of years
but that they shouldn’t. Unfortunately, in my experience, many Christians
do accept millions of years. I often point out that once I thought the earth
was billions of years old, although I obviously now know I was wrong!

What I do say is this: Christians who accept this view are inconsistent! By
rejecting the plain meaning of Genesis and replacing it with the secular teaching
of millions of years, Christians actually undermine the message of the Cross.

Genesis is real history. God created everything in six ordinary days and called
all He had made “very good.” In that perfect creation there was no animal or
human death. But Adam and Eve were real people who disobeyed God. Because their
rebellion brought suffering into this world and death to all their descendants,
Jesus Christ—as “the Last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45)—died on the Cross, conquering
death by His Resurrection.

If death has been here for millions of years, then it was not the result of
the first Adam’s sin. The death of the Last Adam—Jesus—makes no sense. What
did Jesus die for, if not to pay for the consequences of man’s sin? If a Christian
believes in evolution and thinks millions of years of death are recorded in
the fossil record, how can he explain the meaning of the Cross?

After I point out that millions of years requires death before sin, most people
say, “Wow, I never thought about that before!” I have even gotten this response
from solid Bible-teaching pastors who had just never considered the age-of-the-earth
issue in that light. At one time in my life, neither had I.

What About Dinosaurs?

Kids love dinosaurs. But most parents don’t have biblical answers about dinosaurs.
So parents and kids come to me with all kinds of questions: Are there dinosaurs
in the Bible? Did people and dinosaurs walk the earth together? Were there dinosaurs
on the Ark? What happened to the dinosaurs?

I guess you can see why I try always to have a dinosaur talk at my conferences.

Sure dinosaurs were real. They were created on the sixth day of Creation Week
along with man, so men and dinosaurs walked the earth together. Noah took representatives
of each kind of air-breathing land animal on board the Ark, so dinosaurs were
on the boat.

I then quickly review all the physical evidence of men and dinosaurs existing
together. If there is time, I point out many of the historical references to
dinosaurs. (But in these older historical documents the creatures are not referred
to as dinosaurs because the word dinosaur did not exist until 1841.)
The parents usually say, “Man, I wish I had these answers when I was a kid!”

The Urban Legends

On the flip side, people often share “sure-fire” proofs of the Bible that don’t
stand up under scrutiny. I call these “urban legends in the church.” Many Christians
accept these proofs but, as appealing as they are to some, the proofs have no
basis in history or science.

Lots of folks come to me excited “how wonderful it is that NASA proved the
Bible to be true!” Then they tell me about how NASA was doing some calculations
during the Apollo program and found the missing time from the sun standing still
for Joshua and going backward for Hezekiah. They are so disappointed (and sometimes
annoyed) when I tell them it isn’t true.

I point out that there is no mathematical way to discover missing time solely
by calculating backward. There must be a fixed point of reference before the
“missing time” to detect any supposed discrepancy.

Another legend bites the dust. Another “legend” that comes up all the time
is the story that Charles Darwin recanted on his deathbed. Supposedly Darwin
felt so great a remorse about his awful ideas that he renounced evolution and
became a Christian. So evolution can’t be true, right?

Well, it never happened. Darwin never recanted. He never renounced evolution,
and he never came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Darwin supposedly survived
several months after this rejection of his own ideas, but he never
wrote of this. He never spoke with his family about this, and after his death
his family continually denied it. While it would be nice if it were true, we
must acknowledge history.

Amazingly, many Christians get mad at me when I point out flaws in their beliefs
or give evidence that their favorite hobby horse is not true. If they have heard
these things for years, who am I to correct them?

Well, we must always strive to be as accurate as we can. We don’t need to shore
up our faith in the Bible with faulty arguments. God’s Word is truth, and every
fact from history and science will be consistent with God’s Word. We can bank
on that.

Are There Answers?

Lives change when people finally get answers to their questions.

Everywhere I go people seek answers. And it is life changing when people finally
get answers to their questions. It was true for me years ago. I struggled with
many of these same issues.

That is why all of us at Answers in Genesis—the parent organization behind
Answers magazine—work to provide answers to questions that cause people
to doubt God’s Word. Whether going to a conference a thousand miles from home,
preparing new articles for our website, making a new DVD, speaking to patrons
at the Creation Museum, or writing for Answers magazine, our mission
is to be a source for sound biblical answers to the questions of the day.

As for me, all I can say is, “Boy, I wish I had these answers when I was a
kid!”

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Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth.